


Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what it is

by Sotano



Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [3]
Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Dawn of X, House of X/Powers of X, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25762153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sotano/pseuds/Sotano
Summary: Charles and Magneto unwind after putting a room full of Davos elites in their place. There was a picnic, some discussion of Shakespeare, champagne. They both knew how this was playing out, they'd known it for hours, they just weren't expecting it to be so fuckingsentimental.After X-Men (2019) #4, also fits after Chapter 2 of the behind the scenes piece. Title is long, but it's a quote from Antony and Cleopatra, one of the like three or four Shakespearean tragedies Magneto and Professor X tick the boxes for.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819501
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what it is

Davos had been lovely. A chance for Magneto to let off some steam, and it was weirdly gratifying to see that righteous anger on _his_ side, every time it happened. Not that they also hadn't had an excellent chance to do that in New York. Charles could practically still feel the adrenalin spike through him as Erik crushed Richards' hideous machine. The evening was winding down, and Charles desperately wanted to get out of his suit, and he could hear Magneto's thoughts loudly and unproductively agreeing for all the wrong reasons. He thought about his companion now, and watched him as the light dimmed.

Erik's profile was a thing of art. Strong features gave away his emotional state so well Charles hardly needed the mind reading. White hair and steel eyes and a rakish, unguarded expression as they drank champagne and talked in slowly quieting tones. Their afternoon had been interrupted a few times since returning to Krakoa, but the world seemed to be giving Charles a break today, and each time they managed to handle things from afar. The perks of Charles' particular mutation and about eight or nine of his former students who all seemed to want to give Charles the day off. As the afternoon wore on, both ditched their suit jackets and rolled up their sleeves. Charles was in a black vest and a grey shirt, and had kept his black tie. Erik didn't really do vests, and his muted pink shirt was open at the collar. The tie was somewhere, and Erik didn't seem particularly concerned about where it might have ended up.

They'd been discussing Shakespeare for perhaps the third or fourth time today. First, The Merchant of Venice, because Erik had taken some spirit of the lines for himself earlier at the luncheon. That play went as disquietingly as it always did, but it was all a well-practiced game. Each had to make concessions to the other's logic occasionally. Somehow they'd gotten onto the romantic tragedies, which wasn't helping Charles' almost inevitable pull towards thinking about sex with Erik. He wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten onto Antony and Cleopatra.

"I _like_ Enobarbus," Charles said, a little petulant.  
"You _would_ ," Erik said, rolling his eyes. "The devoted, loyal friend; more than half in love with the tragic hero but not as blinded by whatever it is his he can't seem to let go of. Your favorite archetype, Charles, in every play. I wonder if that means you see me as Antony. Should I be flattered, or insulted?"  
"'Now he’ll outstare the lightning. To be furious is to be frighted out of fear,'" Charles quoted. "'I see still a diminution in our captain’s brain restores his heart. When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.'"

Erik grumbled something about the advantage Charles' brain had when it came to quotes, which he sometimes did when he knew Charles had him.  
"Yes," Charles said, "in answer to your question. I think you'd make a fine Antony, considering the requirements."

Magneto had been right, of course. They both had a bad habit of finding their likenesses in literature, perhaps because it was easier during their brief affairs to speak with a degree of plausible deniability. With Shakespeare, Charles either put himself into playing that part, or was pulled into it by Erik's argumentation. The true (occasionally besotted) friend; the voice of reason and moderation, only ever in the interest of the hero they cared so deeply for. Ultimately, er, unsuccessful. Patroclus to Achilles in Troilus and Cressida; Banquo in Macbeth; Horatio for Erik's Hamlet; and certainly, easily, poor Enobarbus, who died of a broken heart in the guilt of finally leaving Antony's side.

Erik, for his part, understood Antony's tragedy, even if he mocked Antony himself: he was stuck between being the honorable Roman he felt he ought to be, for the sake of his people; and being Cleopatra's, and what she needed. He oscillated between the two until he could ultimately have neither. Charles understood why Erik had once argued Antony should never have laid eyes on Cleopatra, and he suspected Erik could no longer make that argument in good faith. They had both shifted, even while Shakespeare remained static, and the tragedies felt less inevitable, less replicable. A little less paralyzing. Now, Charles thought wryly, they seemed to be able to actually _enjoy_ Shakespeare.

"I'm far too decisive to ever be one of Shakespeare's _men_ , and you know it, Charles," Erik said, finishing his drink languidly. Charles watched the graceful motion of his hand.  
"Is decisive the word?" Charles said, toying with his own glass. Erik shot him a withering look, and Charles kissed him. Time stretched out lazily before they came apart. Magneto's steel gaze followed him, followed his lips particularly.  
"It's getting late," Erik insinuated. Charles loved his voice dearly, he thought all of a sudden. He loved any chance to be alone with Erik, he'd always loved the way Erik spoke, always passionate, always sharp and right in a way that drew Charles in. Even when he was idly conversing with Charles, for the sake of it, Erik's voice always had an engrossing quality. Charles supposed, really, that his obsession with Erik had begun with the way the man talked.  
"We should call it a night," he agreed.

Erik got up first and offered one of his muscular arms. Charles took it and rose, growing more used to his new body every day. Erik's powers picked up their effects, including two bulky helmets neither man had the heart to put back on just yet. They walked back to the House of X, only a short distance really, in companionable silence. It would have been platonic, if Erik weren't so close. The light was low, now, a little orange, and in the trees they were almost completely in the dark. Charles could occasionally feel Erik's breath at the side of his neck. Occasionally they had to slow, the path was littered with roots and the shadows played tricks on Charles' senses, and when they did Erik's hands came to his elbows, his waist, anywhere under the pretense of guiding, fooling neither of them and not particularly minding.

There was a small instinct in him that said soak this all in, because one day soon they'd wreck it, but it was dim and usually quite distant. Erik's powers opened the door, and he closed it behind them the old fashioned way, and his arm shot out to catch Charles' as the telepath headed towards the kitchen. Instead, Erik pulled him back to the doorway, against the wall, and kissed him in the dark.

"Charles," Erik said as he pulled away, in that way only he said it, suffused with a downright ridiculous nuance of meaning. This time it was lightly chiding. Charles was in his own head again, and he felt a sudden urge to banish the idiotic, childish fear that seemed to be flaring up ever since he'd dwelled on it, or maybe it was the Shakespeare that had drawn it out.

"It's not exactly the way it was, is it?" Charles asked carefully. "I couldn't go back, I suspect, to being friends. Or to being enemies, as much as we ever were. It's really done, isn't it? No matter what happens. I need this. We both do. No more running."

Magneto thought about it, sometimes. Charles saw, and then Magneto drew him into his mind with a practiced ease, almost as if he were the telepath. Erik thought about the little mannerisms that betrayed Charles in whatever body, thought about the way his graceful fingers framed his face, resting just to the side of his wide eyes. The first thing he'd noticed about his friend was his eyes, back when they were young together. His absurdly kind eyes, and his gentle eyelashes, and his harsh, precise eyebrows. Everything about Charles had been fascinating from the beginning. Magneto had been a reluctant friend, at first, and within a month they both thought they were inseparable; though they would be proven devastatingly wrong. He thought about Charles' soft voice, and the way it reverberated in his mind when he used telepathy. He thought about the comfort of Charles' touch, grounding, always there when Magneto needed it most. Charles Xavier was under his godforsaken skin, all the time, and he was right. There was no going back, not when he'd felt how good it could be staying.

"Yes," Magneto said. "No more."

That seemed to be Charles' tagline, these days, and he knew Magneto privately adored it. To be fair, it sounded like the sort of thing he'd say, and Magneto's thoughts interjected to agree: it was the first thing he said to himself when Charles came back to him, before they'd even properly gotten back together, after those years alone that now felt eerily like sleepwalking.  
Charles kissed him, and felt Erik's muscles jump under his fingers, as if his touch was still unexpected after however many decades. As many problems as Charles knew he had stemming from their on-off affair, Erik felt them as well, mixed in with his existing tics and paranoias.

Charles could feel him, occasionally, reaching out with his powers to touch Cerebro, sometimes from halfway across the island. It was that part of him that had woken up in the morning, on Charles' couch after his telepath had been brought back from the dead, and refused to let go. He took Charles to bed and spent a half hour just looking at him. Just, touching him, making sure he was real, pretending and fooling no one that he was learning a new body when it was so obviously Charles' he'd know it blind.

Magneto kissed his throat, and Charles could either feel a pained smile against his skin or could pick up the expression over their mental connection. The thought that accompanied it, unbidden, was an incredibly self-aware acknowledgement on Erik's part. * _I wish I could believe I was too old and too powerful for separation anxiety,_ * Magneto murmured in his head apologetically, the tiniest bit humorously, and good Lord, Charles might have had the same thought five seconds ago.

They were too entangled, Charles realized dimly. A train of thought that had started out his had somehow made its way into Erik's head. Charles curled his fingers into Erik's shirt and pushed lightly, letting the sensation of it draw him back out of their heads.  
"It feels good, though, doesn't it? Using your powers with me like that. You're so strong, Charles, so clever," Erik murmured against his ear. "Don't hold back."  
Charles grinned at that. "Erik, darling, I'm afraid it'll be a very quick evening if I don't hold _something_ back."

Still, just because Erik had gotten to show off today, Charles let Erik in, and the resulting feedback loop of desire for even a moment was enough to make Erik groan, almost buckle over. It was something Charles experienced fairly often, and he was used to keeping his cool when handling a certain... intensity.  
And now there was that other part of Erik's feelings towards Charles, rearing its head in his psyche. Charles could feel it gaining traction in Erik's mind. The part that chanted _power_ every time Charles walked in stride with him, constantly baying for those rare moments when Charles set his self-ascribed boundaries aside.

Magneto loved Charles' power, and was terrified by it, and that made him love it more. Not just his mutation, but the way Charles carried himself and never let anything stop him, the way Charles spoke and moved and the way his clever eyes passed from one thing to the next, all screamed a muted power. It was almost a religious awe that Magneto felt, except that in most religions one couldn't take one's deity by the tie tucked neatly into their vest and pull them into the bedroom.

Charles felt a distinct physical heat-rush, and it wasn't on his body, and Erik followed the exact action the thought had focused on. "Was that your thought or mine?" Erik asked, kissing Charles again as if to make answering more of a challenge. They were in the bedroom, now, but Erik seemed to prefer cornering Charles against the door.  
"Yours," Charles gasped. "I'm not _that_ egotistical."  
Charles' buttons had metal in them, apparently, and it seemed once again that their mutual designer was making some wild assumptions.  
"They're not wild if they're true," Erik pointed out, as he slid the vest off and yanked the tie away. "It's not egoism if it's true."  
"That is too convenient a philosophy, even for you," Charles accused, and disentangled them a little mentally. Enough to catch a breath.  
"Charles," Erik said with an almost insufferable confidence. "You're overthinking again."

As if to punctuate his point, Erik picked him up and turned effortlessly, diving them both onto the bed. Erik wrenched off Charles' shirt and probably ruined his own in his rush. The dress shirt revealed ridiculous musculature on Erik's part; frankly obscene on a man his age; too sculpted to possibly be real, except it was firm against Charles' hand, and radiating warmth, and littered with little scars and nicks and imperfections. Charles felt his face heat, which might have been ludicrously sentimental if Erik weren't also trailing his hand over Charles' dress slacks.

"You quoted Antony and Cleopatra at me earlier," Erik said, teeth flashing white in the dark with a sinister insinuation of a smile. "I wonder if turnabout is fair play."  
Erik's powers undid his belt, and then his zipper, and Erik's perfect hand wrapped around his cock. Charles was grasping at straws to find some way of maintaining the illusion of composure, of nonchalance which was his go-to response to Erik's overwhelming control.  
"If you make a comment about my newfound age not, ah, _withering_ my good looks; I'm getting out of bed."

Erik laughed softly. "So you've upgraded yourself! From Enobarbus to Cleopatra. Congratulations, Charles, that's quite a social leap."  
"Not upgrading myself," Charles said, clipped, "just--know your sense of humor too well."  
Erik's other hand came to the back of Charles' head, cradling it as he looked down on the telepath. He quirked his head, lazy smile still flashing in the moonlight.  
"You know, Charles," he said, and it probably wasn't meant to sound so utterly _fond_ , "you're probably the only person alive who can say that."  
He flicked his thumb over the head of Charles' cock and Charles practically jumped. Erik tugged and his slacks pulled away, and suddenly all that flawed, perfect skin was against his own. The hand retreated to his hip and Charles shut his eyes against the way they pressed together.

"'O'er my spirit thy full supremacy thou knew'st,'" Erik murmured, breath hot on Charles' skin as he reached tellingly for the nightstand. "'And that thy beck might from the bidding of the gods command me.'"  
"Erik," Charles said. "I can't--" Something about Erik's _voice_ , and his powers flared out, tangling the two of them again.  
"Fuck, _Charles_ ," Erik managed, and stopped wasting time.  
Charles could hardly feel a small thing like pain at this point, caught up in Erik's pleasure. Erik's mind was fixated; thinking about Charles' lips when he'd told Reed Richards that he felt merciful; thinking about the way it felt to have Charles at his side this afternoon, when he told a room full of human economists they'd never rule again. They'd dig their own graves, and happily, and Charles had found a way to keep mutants safe from their greed, safe even from death itself, and Magneto would never get over it, never get over this sheer need for his closest friend. Erik fucked him as if he'd been thinking about it all day, like this, as if they didn't have all the time in the world.  
"God, you feel so perfect," Erik said, almost annoyed at how much he wanted Charles. His gaze was too much, Charles had to close his eyes, had to turn away, and Erik bit his neck like they were fucking teenagers. He supposed he couldn't help his reaction, still, as Erik's hips bucked and Charles felt his head spin, felt his eyes roll back. Erik's hand was back on his cock, and Charles' powers swirled through both of their minds, absorbing them in all their sensations and idle fantasies. Above them, above the abused bedpost, hung the sword Erik had forged, after the assassination, and it gleamed with a broken piece of data. The word love overridingly passed through the whirlwind of Erik's thoughts, even as he was gripping hard enough to bruise, and Charles came with a gasp.

Later, curled together, Erik's heavy arm was around his waist as they drifted off.  
"Antony was a fool," Erik murmured against the back of Charles' ear. "He should have chosen to be with her from the start, if that was what she needed. He should never have--"  
Charles turned in his arms and kissed him, cupping his face in his hands. He could never love anyone the way he loved Erik, and no amount of misplaced guilt was enough to change that. "We're both here now," Charles said, and let something in his tone, or perhaps his powers, convey his profound contentedness. "And resurrection means things are going to stay like this for a very long time, indeed, if I have any say."  
Something about Erik's grip relaxed, and Charles smiled. "Besides," he said, turning back around. "You're obviously much more like Cleopatra."  
The last thing he felt before falling asleep was the ghost of Erik's upturned lips and his rumbling, low laughter.


End file.
